Your soup… well, let me put it this way…. there is still room for improvement.

Eine Reise durch Raumund Zeit.

A journey through space and time.
(spaceas in universe is sometimes also called Weltraum,astronauts are Raumfahrer… like… they drive up there in their Mercedes; German cars can go everywhere I guess)

Naturally, there are also many common compound nouns with it.

Ich brauche in einer Beziehung viel Freiraum.

I need a lot of clearance/free space in a relationship.

Mein Koffer ist im Kofferraum.

My suitcase is in the trunk.

Der Politiker sieht keinen Spielraum für Steuersenkungen.

The politician sees no scope/room/margin for tax cuts.

Thomas ist im Zeitraumvon 2 Wochen 8 mal zu spät zur Arbeit gekommen.

Over a period of 2 weeks Thomas has been late to work 8 times.

Zeitraum... hmmm … maybe that’s where Mozart got his inspiration for his space-time.
But anyway, there is one area where Raumand room don’t really match up… and that’s our home,or more generally places where we live. Sure, a 3-room flat is sometimes called Dreiraumwohnungbut the rooms themselves are not called Räume, they are called Zimmer…. like Hans Zimmer, the film composer. But you have to say “Tsimmer”Das Zimmeris related timber and also to words like dome, domicile or Russian dom (house).They all come from a root that meant to build. And because for a long time houses were build with wood, it’s not totally crazy to call it Zimmer. Here are the most important ones…

Badezimmer – bath room

Wohnzimmer – living room

Schlafzimmer – bedroom

Kinderzimmer- (dictionary said nursery, but I have doubts… is there a word for just the room in a flat?)

Einzelzimmer – single room

Doppelzimmer – double room/twin

All right.
Now, all this is certainly nice to know but what really makes Raumspecial and a Word of the Day is the verb räumen - yet another one of those verbs that are missing in textbooks but that people use every day… at least in combination with prefixes. So let’s take a look.
The core idea of räumenis not very surprising… and if you think I’m going to pull a cheap joke by giving a bogus, then let me tell you this: you err. The core of aufräumen is “to freshen up”. Haha…. gotcha.. it is “to make room”.
Now, if we want to make room we have to remove whatever is taking up the space. And that is what räumenis all about… removing something. And because it is also about space, we usually räumenlarger objects. You wouldn’t use räumen in context with a few bread crumbs that you wipe of the table.
Now you’re like “Give us examples. What’s the translation? “… well, the best translation is probably to clear… because it has the same weird double focus as räumen…. double focus isn’t really a thing, don’t worry. I just needed a word. So… the basic structure is this:

Thomas räumt etwas.

Thomas clears something.

Subject, verb, direct object. Plain and simple. But once we look at what etwas can be, we get two quite different meanings. Of course etwas can be the thing that gets removed.

Thomas räumt Schnee.

Thomas clears the snow.

But also the location that gets emptied can be the direct object, too. And that is the far more common use.

Thomas räumt seine Wohung.

Thomas clears his flat.

That means that he removes all his stuff and leaves himself. Does that lead to confusion? Well… not really. Often there is some information in the sentence that gives it away

Ich räume meinen Schrank nach draussen.

I bringmy closet outside.

Ich räume meinen Schrank leer.

I emptymy closet.

And even without any hint… context mostly makes it clear.
Now, the verb räumen itself isn’t that useful in daily life but this weird … I guess we could call it double focus is present in most of the prefix versions.
Let’s take for instance abräumen. The ab-adds the idea of taking away from the top of something.

Ich räumeden Tisch ab.

I clear the table.

Ich räumedie Teller ab.

I am taking awaythe plate

In the first example, we are told the location and not what exactly is being removed, in the second example it is the other way around. Context clears it up… haha… clears it up. Get it? Clear like räumen… meh never mind.
Very similar to abräumen are ausräumenand einräumen. Aus is about taking stuff out of something and ein.. well, you get the idea :)

I have emptied the kitchen cabinet. Now I’ll wipe it out and then I’ll put the glasses back in.

These last few examples had a lot to do with cleaning. And the next one is even a translation for that.Aufräumen is kind of a general term for bringing stuff in order and every kid in Germany hears it on a daily basis.

Räumdein Zimmer auf!

Clean up your room!

Putzen, waschen, reinigen, sauber machen... all those are to clean more or less about removing dirt and they imply water or detergent or something. Aufräumen is to clean too, but it is more about bringing things in order.. picking up all clothes from the floor and folding them, bringing all the cups and plates to the kitchen, sorting the DVD collection… that sort of thing. It can include the use of water and wiping… for instance if we have to aufräumenour kitchen after a party, but that’s not the main component.
And aufräumen isn’t only for rooms.

We had investors visiting yesterday. We all had to clean our desks for that.

Does aufräumen have the double focus like the others? Well… most use the location as the direct object… room, desk, hard-drive. But there is stuff like

Räumdeinen Mist auf.

Clean up your mess.

and I think this is not about having tidy mess after, so we can, without a doubt, say that it is also possible to aufräumen the cause of the aufräumen…. uhm… maybe I should aufräumen that last sentence. But anyway… aufräumen can also be used without any object.The location and the target is then usually implied by context.

Oh God, my mother-in-law is coming tomorrow. I really have to cleanhere.

All right.
Now there are a still a few other verbs left. Umräumen uses the “change”-meaning of “um” and it basically means to rearrange the furniture in one’s home… quite a handy word actually.

Ich habe umgeräumt.

“I have rearranged” (lit.)

Then, there is wegräumenand this one actually cannot refer to the location, that get’s “spaced up”. Only to the thing you remove.

Ich räumemeine Sachen weg.

I put/square away my stuff.

Last but not lea… well… actually last AND least we have verräumen, which is a technical term for storing away stock. Yeah… räum that on your passive pile.
So. let me think, is that it?… I don’t want to forget anything… uhm… …oh yeah… there are a few abstract meanings in more or less fixed phrasings …

Der Politker räumt Fehler ein.

The politician admits mistakes.

Youtube räumtgemeinnützigen Organisationen Sonderrechte ein.

Youtube grants special rights/privileges to organisations of public utility.

Thomas hat beim Poker richtig abgeräumt.

Thomas really cleaned up in poker. (won big time)

and what else… uhm… related words, yeah of course there are a few related words

Wir brauchen zwei Augen um räumlich zu sehen.

We need to eyes to see in 3D.(the dimension of room)

Das Zelt wirkt klein, ist aber sehr geräumig.

The tent looks small but it is very roomy/spacious.

Aaaand… I think that’s it. Awesome. So this was our German Word of the Day der Raum… Raum means rooms, (unless it is one room we live in) and it is the basis of the verb räumen. Räumen has at its core the idea of “making room by removing something” it can take the thing you remove as well as the location you remove it from as a direct object and, together with various prefixes, this idea is often used in sense of some sort cleaning… abräumen, aufräumen, wegräumen… all those are part of daily life and I’m sure you’ll come across them sooner or later.
If you have any questions about today’s words or if you want to try out some examples of your own, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it, and see you next time.

46 responses to “Word of the Day – “der Raum””

Hi, I’ve just discovered your web site yesterday and am finding it very helpful in explaining the quirky aspects of the German language which my German wife is struggling to explain clearly. She normally declares I just have to learn it, AH!!!!

Anyway, while reading through the latest word of the day post I found that some of your translations to be not quite correct. For example let’s take “Oh Gott. Morgen kommt meine Schwiegermutter. Ich muss unbedingt aufräumen.”. You gave the translation “Oh god, my mother in law is going to come tomorrow. I so have to clean.”. In my humble opinion a more accurate translation would be “Oh God, my mother-in-law is coming tomorrow. I really must tidy up”. I feel your translation is too literal.

I have to respectfully disagree with the commenter. I think the comment “I really must tidy up” sounds VERY British to my American ears. “I SO have to clean” is idiomatic ‘American’ (with the emphasis on the word “Sooo”) and sounds much better/ more colloquially/casually correct to me. Just my 2 cents worth ;-)

– Ich habe die Mülltonne von der Strasse (weg)geräumt .
i would use von instead of aus, Straße is 2D so you can’t take something out of it, aus only works with 3D objects.
also you don’t need weg- here again the part withe the public space applies.

Does this literally mean, “The politician sees no ‘play room’ for tax cuts?” That makes sense to me, as a Native English speaker. People occasionally use the term “play room” when talking about budgets. Like, “If we allow our employees 3 weeks to complete the project, it will give them a little ‘play room’ if something unexpected happens.” Also, wiggle room. Both are cute.

Hi,
I’m a native speaker too. “Playroom” in that context sounds wrong to me, I’d only ever use that in the context of children. I’d assume the speaker was transliterating “Spielraum” tbh. “Wiggle room”or “room to manoeuvre” sound best.

Thanks for the great articles, it’s almost impossible to get this sort of colloquial usage anywhere. :-)

I think “wiggle room” would work there, yes. It’s used in a lot of contexts, at least in spoken English. I don’t think it would be used in, say, a written business report or a newspaper, but it would be fine for a business meeting or a TV news report.

Hi
The best thing I like about your daily german is: when you talk about something, a word, a grammar concept, anything, you drill down to all possible usage as well as related vocabulary. The occasional humour and anecdotes add spice and keeps the reader glued until the end of the post. Besides this, the clarity in design and font used makes the page read friendly. Thanks a lot for taking efforts.

The phrase would mean “I steal something of something”… for example “I steal the key of your car.”
In the example you gave the situation is different.
The stone does the stealing and it steals my fame… the translation would be